Like a Puppet
by Ms. ST
Summary: Can the countries decide for themselves their own destiny? Why had they been chosen to burden such a curse? Is living forever really worth it? While another year passes, Alfred rings in the New Year with these thoughts. Contains an OC and language.


She woke up. The digital clock on the nightstand burned 11:16 into her eyes. Blinking, sending her exhaustion down her flushed cheeks and onto the downy pillow, she sat up and yawned. She could already taste the morning on her tongue even though it was the middle of the night.

Through the window the moon sent down its glorious rays, comforting the woman and coaxing her to lay her head down again and go back to sleep. Oh, how she adored the moon. Back home, at this time of year, she would see nothing but its magnificent beauty dancing with the stars, its rays swirling around them like a lucid veil. The woman did as she was told, but something was missing.

Rolling over, she discovered that someone wasn't there. She stretched out an arm to feel the faint warmth of the man tangle through her fingers, but his body wasn't curled up beneath the covers like it was suppose to be. Softly, she cursed under her breath, peeled the soft sheets from her body, and hopped out of the large, four-poster bed in search for her missing lover.

But it wasn't much of a search for the sole reason that she knew exactly where he was. The man wasn't very unpredictable. When she stepped to the sliding doors that lead to a large, extravagant deck, she pulled back the curtains and saw a black figure slumping over the wooden railing. The moon hit his slouched shoulders just right, his golden hair glowed like a nightly halo around his head. She couldn't help but look at him or repress the small smile that suddenly brightened her face, but as soon as she felt her lips part, she shook her head and scowled at the moon. She could have sworn she heard the moon giggle.

As if to get back at the moon or maybe she was just cruel, the woman slammed the door opened and watched the black figure jump a foot into the air and nearly tumble over the railing. She didn't know she was holding her breath until she let out a puff of air when the man caught himself.

He turned around with a hand clenching his chest. "Jesus Christ, Terra, are you trying to kill me?"

When he calmed down and removed his shaking hand from his chest, she answered cooly, "I think I would have succeeded by now if I were trying to do that, Alfred." She allowed a small smirk stretch the corner of her mouth as he let out a nervous laugh. He didn't know whether to believe her or whether she was joking.

Terra took a spot next to America and leaned her elbows against the railing. Trees surrounded them for miles. They swopped into valleys and became scattered amongst the mountains. The tops of the hills licked the sky and seduced the moon to give them some of her rays. Silver coated branches like a soft newborn's blanket, and in the distance a coyote sung its love song to the moon. Civilization didn't exist here, and that was just the way Terra liked it.

She could feel something burning the side of her cheek and quickly discovered that it was only Alfred's eyes, glistening from the moon in front of them. Curiously, she gave him a quick side glance, ignored him again, but could still feel his stare prickle the skin of her cheek.

Finally fed up with his weird behavior, Terra turned her head and growled, "What?"

"Aren't you cold?" he asked smoothly as though her temper hadn't affected him at all. "I mean, don't get me wrong, seeing you wear my boxers is totally hot, but it's the middle of winter and you're outside with just a nerdy t-shirt and Mickey boxers."

Not at all phased by Alfred's comment, Terra set a firm fist on her round hip and cocked it like a loaded gun. "I live in the coldest place on the planet, where temperatures reach so low in the negatives that you can reach hypothermia within minutes if not careful. Do you really think a little chill will affect me?"

She snorted. "You're the one who _despises_ cold weather. Why are you out here? And at this hour? I'm the one with the weird biological clock."

Alfred hesitated, then cleared his throat and crossed his arms on the railing. "I was just thinking..."

Her hand slipped from her hip, her entire bluster slumping into a heap of comprehension around her shoulders. As long as she knew Alfred, he always had to be outside to think. He said that being inside blocked the beauty of his country, even the windows never truly doing the scenery justice, and that somehow he felt his mountains, his trees and bushes, his land was speaking to him. To any normal person, it would seem like a load of shit, but because Terra was her own continent, she fully understood what Alfred meant.

She turned towards the stunning, elegant landscape of the Smokies and said, "I know."

Silence hung around them like a cumulus cloud, only the faint sound of crickets and the frequent howl of a coyote keeping them company. As Terra watched the soft fog blanket the tops of the Smokies like a protective shield, she had to admit that Alfred had one helluva country. Sure, through a political eye, he was obnoxious and bossy with a stubborn mind-set that he was always right, but the beauty that this one country held was so magnificent that Terra couldn't help but feel... well... jealous. Deserts, mountains, and volcanoes were what she was graced with, and they were all white. Terra would never in a million years tell anyone that going to America every winter was something she looked forward to, to get away from all the snow, to see something different like the color red or green. To see what it's like to have variety. Antarctica has pride in her continent, but Terra wanted to know if it really was greener on the other side.

"Don't cha get tired of living forever?" The question cut the silence in half like a magician's assistant.

Terra looked over at Alfred, her eyebrows rising incredibly high. "What?"

"Don't cha get, ya know... tired of living forever?" he repeated, turning to face her. "Don't cha get... I dunno... scared that the only way we'll die is if everyone else dies with us?" He paused for a moment, his glasses gleamed from the moon. "The end of the world."

Terra snorted, hiding her anxiety. "You've been watching too many poorly made horror movies."

"No, no! I'm serious!" he said, his voice hitched up a few octaves. "Don't cha think about this kind of stuff?"

"No! I don't!" answered Terra, but it came out weird as if she were trying to hold down a lie. When she watched Alfred rake a hand through his hair and sigh with impatient misery, like he was beating himself up for saying anything at all, Terra grabbed his upper arm and spun him around to look at her.

"Where are these questions coming from?" she asked sternly.

Alfred didn't pretend to misunderstand and frantically waved his hands in front of him. "What? No! NO! It's nothing like that! I swear!"

Letting go of America's sleeve, Terra crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her hip again. "Alfred," she said, "questions just don't pop out of thin air. They have to have a source."

Alfred turned away from her and scratched the back of his neck. "I was wonderin'. Don't get my boxers all up in a bun-"

"Alfred."

His eyes widened when he looked at her and saw the daggers the continent was shooting at him.

He sighed in defeat and pushed his glasses up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "It just bothers me to think that we have to live forever, you know? That we have to see each other's ups and downs, that we're forced to hate or like each other. I feel like a puppet and someone else is holding the strings, like I got the short straw and my freewill was taken away from me. Seeing my friends grow old, seeing loved ones die... Doesn't it anger you that we were chosen for this goddamn curse? It's just not fair!"

He slammed a fist against the railing, causing a few withered leaves to flutter down into the darkness below. "I've seen what the world has to offer! I've seen the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall, the Grand Canyon about a hundred times!

"I even went to the fucking _moon_!" he cried as he stretched out an arm and gestured to the sky. "What else is there for me? Here?"

Terra stood as still as an ice sculpture, her eyes as wide as the moon above. But when she saw Alfred slump against the railing and bury his head in the crook of his arm, she shook the shock from her body like freshly fallen snow and cleared her throat.

"I don't have all the answers, Alfred," she told him honestly. Why lie about something like this? "I can't tell you why we were chosen for this job or how, but... did anyone tell you to come outside?"

Peeking over his arm, Alfred shook his head.

"Did anyone tell you to forget to do the dishes when a certain someone _explicitly_ told you over and over again to do them?"

Alfred ducked his head back down and answered, "No."

Terra slipped her hands around Alfred's cheeks, the rough stubble scratching her palms, and pulled forward so that now she was practically holding his face and supporting his neck, his arms dangling by his side.

"Did anyone force you to love me?" she whispered, her voice unexpectedly soft like a breath.

Alfred gently took her hands and straightened up. "Of course not."

"Then I guess that puppeteer isn't very good at pulling your strings."

Terra wanted to say more - anything that would wipe that uncharacteristic, unhappy expression off Alfred's face and the dark blue-black color from his eyes. But she knew she had a reputation to maintain, being that mysterious, frozen continent of the South Pole. Her winters were relentless and so was she. Being nice to even someone she loved was something she wasn't proud to admit. Something about Alfred, however, brought the tiniest bit of kindness from her, even though it took years to do so.

They stood there for several moments with only their fingers touching and their eyes saying an eternity's worth of conversation. When you live forever, you get the opportunity to know a person.

"If Dr. Phil ever had a daughter, I think it would be you."

"If that's your way of saying I give good advice and you'll stop thinking about shit like that, then I'll take it."

Seeing Alfred's walls of defense tumble down was a rare sight. It surprised Terra to even hear that he was letting her into the deepest canals of his mind. He always needed to be the hero, to save someone even when that someone never asked. The hero always wore a mask to hide who he truly was, but Terra thought... Maybe heroes didn't wear masks to hide their identity, but to shadow their true emotions so that people wouldn't see the shell of a man that laid inside.

Something red caught the corner of her eye, and she turned her head to see 12:00 burn like a flame from the digital cloak.

"Now give me a kiss," Terra demanded, and leaned forward slightly.

Eagerly he placed his lips on hers and pulled her closer by the waist. It wasn't every day that he was actually invited to kiss her, so he took this opportunity without question or hesitation.

When they parted with a satisfying smack, Terra smirked and said, "Happy New Year."

(They are walking, breathing, living history. They're the result of mistakes and triumphs. They are the model of how learning from our history can stop others from faults and can surface greatness. The people they love die so that they can live on and teach the future to learn from the past. They are the anchor to keeping this world together and in one piece.)

* * *

**Long-ass Author's Note:**

**So, yeah. Kinda cliche (but I live for cliches), and kinda of out of character. But whatevs. I did this at, like, three o-clock one morning. This is set in the present.**

**I view Alfred as really enjoying his immortality, but sometimes, especially during New Years, he gets the feeling that maybe living forever isn't all that great. After all, he's a fairly new country compared to the rest of the world, and these thoughts still burden him, effect him more than the others, and can't quite understand it yet. Then he forgets about it and rides his motorcycle, but the thought is always there. Not everyone is happy all the time, even the best country in da world. And besides, he's probably feeling really down because of his sucky economy.**

**I'm so sadistic. xDDD**

**Apologies: for the suckiness, the OOCnes, the Mary-Sue, mistakes in grammar, etc. etc. etc. C:**

**And I have to apologize for this too - you'll be seeing a lot more of Terra in the future. She'll have her very own fanfic, and I apologize for this because not many people like OCs. I've done my research, but with Antarctica... I will admit, it's very difficult. She doesn't have her own nationality, so there is no stereotype for her. I had to go by her past, how she was brought up, and her weather to shape who she is. Her history is vague about who had discovered her and who had first stepped onto her land, and the territorial claims. OH GOD. THE TERRITORIAL CLAIMS! OTL**

**OH! And the part at the bottom in parentheses was something that Terra was going to tell Alfred, but I thought... She's not /that/ nice and it's something she would never say. Sounds more like... England, I guess. But because England has territorial claims on Antarctica (the first one to claim land there, actually), I guess it would make sense that she'd be kind of like him. Ah, whatever. It's not like this thing is going to be a book, so it doesn't have to make sense! =D**

**SORRY FOR THE RAMBLING! ono**


End file.
